


@amdragjake

by everythingspiteful



Series: afterexposure [1]
Category: American Dragon: Jake Long
Genre: Gen, I Can't Believe I Wrote This, I wrote this during science class i think, Post Reveal, Social Issues, Social Media, i was bored, wow this makes no sense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-02
Updated: 2018-02-02
Packaged: 2019-03-12 12:40:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13547523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everythingspiteful/pseuds/everythingspiteful
Summary: Everyone looked incredulously at the boy, who was wiping tears from his eyes. He thumped his fist on the table, cackling like a madman.“Oh, man,” Jake sighed, still laughing. “Dude, you got your info mixed up.”“What’s that supposed to mean?” Rotwood snapped, face turning red.“Dragon scales don’t glow. What’s the point of that? I can’t really sneak around at night if I look like a spotlight-”ORIn which I got bored and wrote about a possible outcome of Jake being exposed to his school (not the world, just bear with me here).It makes no sense. Have fun.





	@amdragjake

**Author's Note:**

> i've fallen in love with this fandom and it isn't even that big hnnngg
> 
> there are a lot of references to things that i haven't written about; there's mention of him saving the school, and i plan on writing about what happened, but for now make of it what you will
> 
> s o r r y,, i wrote this for myself on docs and didn't think to edit it
> 
> i'm supposed to be updating my DP stories bUT i need to get this out of my system so hERE
> 
> enjoy

It had been three days since the Reveal.

It was hell. Due to the potion, his classmates were incapable of exposing magical creatures to the world, but that didn’t mean they didn’t resent him for it. Wherever he went, he was recognized as the dragon - a monster, something pretending to be human.

It didn’t matter that he’d saved half the student population. It didn’t matter that he’d never attacked anyone at that school, ever; it didn’t matter that he seemed totally human, because all they saw was a gigantic reptile.

Jake walked through the halls of Filmore, and, like always, was met with students staring at him, scrambling away from him in fear, whispering and glaring. One boy spit at his feet. 

Jake ignored it. Grandpa wanted him to ignore it. He needed to do so. 

Even if it hurt so much.

Jake opened his locker. He’d tried to get to school early today, though evidently it wasn’t early enough. His heart sank when a piece of paper fluttered out from his locker,  _ FREAK  _ written in big, bold letters. He crushed it in his hand, grabbed his books, and slammed the locker shut, making everyone around him jump.

He felt numb.

He didn’t even notice when Trixie and Spud ran over and gave him a hug. He didn’t notice the stares. He didn’t notice how his hair hardened just a bit into the spines he had in his dragon form. He just focused on dragging his feet across the floor to his first class.

_ I would give anything for a memory wipe, _ Jake thought bitterly.  _ Too bad the supplies for it are down. I hope Fu is working on getting some for this all to be over.  _ Of course, they’d need a lot of memory wipe to fix this. And exposure to it for too long could lead to serious health risks. So the vents weren’t an option. But no one ate the cafeteria food anyway. So that was also out of the question.

_ I’ll figure this out later. _

Jake made his way to the back of the classroom. Conversation stilled when he entered, people scooting away from him as if he were some deadly disease. He growled a bit and plopped down in his seat in the back row, resting his head on his hands.

The teachers were still required to teach him (his parents made sure of that), but that didn’t mean they liked it. Ironically, Rotwood was the only teacher at that school that treated him the exact same way as before the Reveal.

But he wasn’t in Rotwood’s class now.

“Everyone, please grab a worksheet from the front,” Ms. Fern said, and students chattered with each other as they moved up. The teacher looked pointedly at Jake. He knew what it meant: stay away from the other students for now.

When it was his turn, he slinked up to the front in an almost serpentine way, just to mess with the students. If they thought he was incapable of being human, then there really was no point, was there? Jake thought about letting his forked tongue flick out. He realized  that may be too much.

When returned to his seat, he opened up his phone underneath the table. The lesson didn’t really matter to him anyway - he doubted the teachers looked at his work anymore. He opened his Instagram and grimaced at the new messages.

Ever since people had discovered his social media page, the account had been flooded with threatening messages and slurs. He’d been able to ignore most of it, hoping it would go away… it hadn’t. His hands shook a bit at the new DMs.

His account was private, only for students at his school. He’d created it in the hopes of gaining popularity, and it had largely worked, with his videos of skateboarding up ramps and doing flips in his backyard. He hadn’t posted anything in a long time.

It was later, by his locker right before lunch, that a student finally had the courage to approach him.

Brad Morton wasn’t the subtlest of people, so when he tried to sneak up behind Jake and swing a fist at his head, the dragon sensed him. Instincts flaring up in what he assumed was a threat, he lept up into the air -  _ much higher than a normal human should -,  _ twisted his body around, and grabbed onto the metal of the lockers with his claws, leaving him perched there on the wall, face contorting into a snarl.

Brad blanched at the sight, and several students screamed. Jake blinked, realizing his mistake.

“Oh,” he said through a mouthful of fangs, “it’s just you.”

“What the  _ hell, _ ” Brad screeched. “ _ What the hell. _ ”

His claws had gotten longer and darker over time, making them contrast with his bright red scales. No doubt they looked like they belonged to some sort of demon. And with his jaw jutting out to make room for his large, bottom canines, Jake was sure this wouldn’t help him keep up the  _ harmless  _ facade at his school. Oh yeah, and the fact that  _ he was hanging on to the lockers with nothing but his claws. _

Nervously laughing, Jake focused on retracting the teeth and popping his jaw back into place. He was used to the short twinge of pain by now. Then he gently took his claws out of the wall, fell to the ground, and slumped a bit when everyone took another step back.

He was just glad he didn’t turn his feet into claws. With concentration, he could transform his shoes too, but in a moment like that, he likely would have ripped through a perfectly good pair of sneakers.

In a moment, his dragon claws became soft, human hands again. Everyone stared at them.

Jake stomped away to his class.

Rotwood may have been his least favorite teacher, but the exposure of magical creatures gave  Jake a chance to finally correct all his mistakes he kept teaching. And Rotwood could do nothing against it except take notes, because he knew the dragon was right.

“That’s a pixie,” Jake spoke up, “not a fairy.”

Rotwood seethed, but changed the labels for his cards. “ _ Dragon Boy  _ is a smart alec, no?”

Jake raised hands up in mock surrender. “Yo, I’m just correcting you.”

The students watched their exchange like a tennis match. Many tables had been slightly moved away from Jake’s, who sat in the center of the room. Rotwood required it. Jake wasn’t yet sure if he was grateful or annoyed by it.

Rotwood muttered something uncomplimentary in German under his breath, then proceeded to pull up a picture of a dragon on the slideshow. Everyone tensed, sneaking a glance at Jake.

The picture was, coincidentally, one of Jake in his dragon form, ruby red scales glinting. He was on a rooftop. It was from the photoshoot Rotwood and he had agreed on after the Reveal. 

(“If you’re not going to let me expose you to the world,” Rotwood had said, “at least give me some educating material for the students.”)

“I’m sure our  _ resident dragon _ can agree to my claims,” Rotwood continued. He had used every opportunity available to remind the students they had a dragon in their midst. “After swapping information, this is all correct. Dragon scales glow-”

Jake burst out laughing.

Everyone looked incredulously at the boy, who was wiping tears from his eyes. He thumped his fist on the table, cackling like a madman.

“Oh, man,” Jake sighed, still laughing. “Dude, you got your info mixed up.” Didn’t he used to think it was dragon  _ claws  _ that glowed?   
  
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Rotwood snapped, face turning red. 

“Dragon scales don’t  _ glow.  _ What’s the point of that? I can’t really sneak around at night if I look like a spotlight-”

A student snickered, and Jake’s heart soared.

“ _ Very well, _ ” Rotwood hissed. “Dragons  _ don’t  _ glow in the dark.”

“I hope you still don’t think we smell like lavender,” Jake added, just for effect.

“Don’t be absurd. Dragon scales smell like  _ roses. _ ”

Jake stared at him for a moment, considering the fact that he was just joking. But Rotwood’s expression did not change.

The dragon snorted. “Wow. Okay. Lemme tell ya, if I smelled like roses, I’d have gotten a girlfriend  _ long ago. _ ”

“Well, what  _ do  _ you smell like,  _ Jake? _ ” The professor was practically steaming; but his desperation to know everything there was about the magical world outweighed his pride.

Jake furrowed his brows. “ _ Hmm.  _ I guess that depends, yo. I mean, dude, sometimes I smell like smoke, ‘cause… well,  _ fire breathing -  _ but then there was that time my fire breathing glands were developing, and I had the  _ worst  _ breath… also, when I wax my scales, they kind of smell like lemon cake, which isn’t too bad…” He trailed off, aware of everyone staring incredulously at his rambling. “But, y’know-” he ducked his head “-roses? Nah, man.”

The class was quiet for a moment except for Rotwood’s cursing under his breath as he fixed the slideshow. Then, with a squeaky, scared voice, a girl in the corner of the room shyly asked, “Can you show us your fire breathing?”

Jake’s head swiveled around to stare at her - a thin girl with bright red hair and a nervous smile - and warmth bloomed in his chest. Maybe things wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe people would get used to him.

The girl looked kind of terrified, and Jake realized he’d been grinning at her for a full thirty seconds now. He cleared his throat self-consciously, changed his tongue from round to forked - he didn’t want to burn it - and summoned a small flame in the back of his throat. It exited his mouth in a little plume of fire, with almost no smoke rising up. He hoped the flame was small enough not to trip the fire alarm.

The students gawked at the flame that had dissipated as soon as it left his mouth; some in fear, others in awe. Jake grinned sheepishly and burped. Smoke left his mouth, leaving him coughing some. “ _ Agh,  _ sorry -  _ shoot that burns the back of my throat Jesus Christ- _ ”

“Is… is that a forked tongue?” another boy (Jake vaguely remembered his name to be Jared) spoke up uncertainly. 

It was hanging out of his mouth as he continued to cough. Once he was able to stop, Jake let it morph back into a human tongue before saying, “Uh, yeah. It’s fireproof. If I breathe fire in my… human form with a human tongue, it gets burned. I mean,” he rambled, “as a whole, I’m pretty much fireproof, but I can still get burned, and having a burnt tongue really sucks, so imagine burning your tongue with actual  _ fire,  _ ha, I’ll stop talking.”

“A splendid idea,” Rotwood broke in dryly. “I need to get back to teaching  _ my  _ class.”

“Sorry, professor,” Jake muttered.

The atmosphere lightened up considerably after that exchange, with students relaxing in their seats; Jake noticed they didn’t lean away from him as much. He silently whooped in his head.

He kept butting in the lesson to correct Rotwood in his information (“Yo, that’s a troll, not a goblin!”) and after a while, some other students ended up chiming in with their own questions  _ directed at Jake, _ and he was smiling like an idiot the whole lesson because  _ holy crap they aren’t afraid. _

Rotwood, surprisingly, didn’t stop Jake from commenting. Maybe it was just so he could learn more about the magical world, but the dragon boy could see how his expression softened ever so slightly whenever a kid asked Jake a question. 

The class ended much too quickly, something Jake didn’t think possible. When the bell rang, he waited for everyone to leave, like he was supposed to, but then one kid looked at him and said, “You coming, dude?”

Jake looked at him, then at the other students who were still sitting, waiting for  _ him,  _ with a bewildered expression, before beaming and saying in a voice full of joy, “Yeah, I’m coming.”

Later, Jake Long was sitting on the roof of the school, flicking through his phone and looking at the students milling around outside out of the corner of his eye. School had ended about ten minutes ago, and he’d declined going to the park with Trixie and Spud once he’d decided he needed some alone time.

People had  _ sat  _ with him at lunch.

And they didn’t do it because of a dare.

They did it because he looked  _ lonely  _ and because they  _ wanted to learn more about his dragon powers; _ and there was this one girl who wanted him to  _ tutor  _ her for the magical creatures quiz tomorrow.

“That’s a pixie, right?” she’d asked.

“No, it’s a brownie.”

“Oh.” The girl wrinkled her nose. “Rotwood always said it was a pixie.”

Jake laughed. “Trust me, it’s a brownie. And if he says it’s wrong, just tell him who tutored you.” He’d winked at her then, and she’d  _ giggled. _

Unafraid. It was the most amazing feeling in the world when people began to see you as more than a monster.

Jake pressed the create button on his Instagram and scrolled through his camera roll, resting on a photo of him from a few weeks ago.

Lao Shi had gotten him into extensive human form training, where he was required to do as much as he could in his human form instead of his dragon form. Though the magical creatures were confused when a boy showed up to fight instead of the American Dragon, he’d proven himself to be competent enough for combat should he ever lose the ability to fully switch forms.   
  
The picture was of him on the roof of a skyscraper, the setting sun behind him and the city sprawling beneath him for miles and miles. He was shooting a plume of fire into the air in his human form, and with the lighting, you could just make out the front of his face and the green highlights in his hair, with an inferno shooting up into the sky.

The students were incapable of exposing him in any way, be it through physical evidence, verbal communication, or media - including the spreading of photos. 

His gaze drifted over to his username, and he snorted. How long until people realized what  _ amdragjake  _ meant?

Jake grinned a bit, finally uploading the photo with the caption,  _ Thanks for accepting me. _

It was but a day before the first comments were posted; a day before Jake grew the happiest he had been in a long while.

_ Dude, that’s so sick! _

_ Yoooo!! Awesome fire-breathing! _

_ So cool! Wish I could do that! _

_ Are you on top of a SKYSCRAPER? Did you fly there? Maybe you could take me there sometime? _

He noticed most of the comments were from kids in Rotwood’s class - the class that was exposed to his dragon self the most. And those same kids gave him the courage to use the account for more of his pictures - whether it be videos of him training, pictures of him in dragon form, and even the rare prank video for Fu. Trixie and Spud had taken up the trend with their own pictures of Jake in their accounts, Trixie being the most enthusiastic with her endless supply of embarrassing sneaked photos of Jake sleeping, dirty after training, or in awkward positions when meditating.

One of his stories had a video of him accidentally forgetting to change his human tongue to dragon when firebreathing, resulting in a burn and lots of screaming, and ending with him lying on the couch and an ice pack on his tongue.

He had to go to school with a forked tongue the next day while Fu prepared the remedy, bringing lots of attention upon himself as it required him to flick it out every once in a while to stay comfortable.

But that was okay. They didn’t scream anymore when they saw it.

Actually, people seemed completely fine with it. Hell, there was a time when he tripped over his tail once and people  _ laughed  _ instead of standing there, staring. And when he’d dislocated his jaw when showing his fangs, he’d received  _ sympathy. _

They weren’t afraid anymore, and that was all Jake had hoped for.

**Author's Note:**

> ...wow


End file.
